In Ontario, biobased chemicals producer Origin Materials has announced the startup of Origin 1, which is hailed as the world’s first commercial chloromethyl furfural plant. Using wood residues as feedstock, the Sarnia plant will supply intermediate chemicals and materials to various industries, including clothing, textiles, plastics, packaging, automotive parts, and tires. CMF can be used to manufacture para-xylene, a precursor for widely used plastic polyethylene terephthalate, and furandicarboxylic acid, which is used to produce the emerging PET alternative polyethylene furanoate. The plant will also produce hydrothermal carbon for applications like sustainable carbon black for automotive tires.
“[Origin 1] substantially scales up our revolutionary core technology platform. We expect the power of our platform intermediates, CMF and HTC, to be transformative for the chemical industry and how the world generally makes things,” John Bissell, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Origin Materials. Bissell also called commercialization of CMF as “historic, on the order of an ethylene.”